Invisible architecture: the hidden work of the conservation architect

The conservation architect Kirstie Robbins talks to Stuart Nathan about working with engineers to preserve and enhance

A mildly disgruntled engineer once told me at length during a car journey that no engineers were well regarded in the UK apart from one group. This group, he explained, had the good sense not to call themselves engineers. They tended to dress in polo neck jumpers, wear angular glasses, and call themselves architects. This group, he argued, were universally lauded and even elevated to the House of Lords with no controversy.

But architects are not engineers, although they work closely together. Kirstie Robbins, a director with the architecture practice Ptolemy Dean Architects, points out that architects, in fact, tend to come from a very different background from engineers. “It tends to attract people from the arts side, possibly because of the way that architecture degrees are set up with their emphasis on drawing.”